Operation Enduring Freedom Operation Enduring Freedom The Persian Gulf War, or simply the Gulf War, also known as the First Gulf War (August 2nd, 1990 - February 28th, 1991) was a United Nations-authorized military conflict between Iraq and a coalition force from 34 nations commissioned with expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait after Iraq's occupation and annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. Though there were nearly three dozen member states of the coalition, the overwhelming majority of the military forces participating were from the United States, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt as leading contributors, in that order. The Iraq War, also known as the Second Persian Gulf War, the Occupation of Iraq, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, is an ongoing military campaign which began on March 20th, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force now led by and composed almost entirely of troops from the United States and United Kingdom.

The War in Afghanistan is an ongoing coalition conflict which began on October 7th, 2001, as the US military's Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) that was launched, along with the British military, in response to the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the US. The UK has, since 2002, led its own military operation, Operation Herrick, as part of the same war in Afghanistan. The character of the war evolved from a violent struggle against Al-Qaeda and its Taliban supporters to a complex counterinsurgency effort. Sort By: Operation Enduring Freedom - U.S. Begins bombing strategic Taliban sites, start of War in Afghanistan 10-19 U.S. Begins ground assaults against Taliban 11-25 Battle of Qala-i-Jangi: U.S. Special Forces help subdue Mazar-i-Sharif prison revolt, 200-400 Taliban killed Hundreds of Marines land in Kandahar to combat Taliban/ al Qaeda 12-09 Taliban surrender Kandahar and leave city 12-11 Battle of Tora Bora: U.S.

bombs caves near Tora Bora (eastern Afghanistan) where Bin Laden's forces had retreated to 12-16 U.S. Declares al-Qaeda has been destroyed in Afghanistan 2002 03-02 U.S. Begins Operation Anaconda , goal is to remove hidden Taliban/ al-Qaeda forces from mountains. Involves over 1,000 U.S. ground troops. 16 day operation- U.S. suffers 8 casualties, Taliban/ al-Qaeda estimated loss of hundreds 2003 Operation Mongoose reveals Taliban members living in Adi Ghar caves 03 Attacks against the U.S. spike 03-19 U.S. Launches Operation Valiant Strike in Kandahar 12 U.S. Launches Operation Avalanche , involved 2,000 + soldiers, goal is to keep Taliban insurgents on defensive during constitutional council 2004 U.S. Sends 2,000 more marines to Afghanistan to find al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders 2005 01 thru 05 Taliban gains in strength and numbers and continues to attack U.S.

troops, 2005 is deadliest year for U.S. since 2001 06 Insurgents shoot down Chinook helicopter, 16 soldiers are killed 07 U.S. and Afghan troops fight back, killing 100 Taliban and capturing dozens 2006 Taliban militants gain strength, attack U.S. and Afghan forces in the south 05 thru 06 U.S. Launches Operation Mountain Thrust deploying more troops to the south, kill approx 700 Taliban 08 NATO takes over military operations in the south, putting 21,000 American troops and 19,000 NATO troops on the ground 09 Canadian led, Operation Medusa aims to take government control of Kandahar Province, approx 200 Taliban killed Operation Mountain Fury , NATO led follow-up to Medusa, involved clearing Taliban rebels as well as reconstruction of villages 10 thru 12 U.S.

goes on offense (led by 10th Mt Div) to find Taliban members in the mountains bordering Pakistan, under constant attack at new outposts and during combat patrols (almost 150 casualties in 2 months) 2007 03-06 Operation Achilles , NATO led, objective is to clear the Helmand Province of the Taliban- largest NATO operation ever held in Afghanistan, approx 1,000 U.S. soldiers involved Afghanistan War | 2001-2014 | Britannica.com Afghanistan War United States Afghanistan War, international conflict in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 that was triggered by the September 11 attacks and consisted of three phases. The first phase—toppling the Taliban (the ultraconservative political and religious faction that ruled Afghanistan and provided sanctuary for al-Qaeda , perpetrators of the September 11 attacks)—was brief, lasting just two months. The second phase, from 2002 until 2008, was marked by a U.S. strategy of defeating the Taliban militarily and rebuilding core institutions of the Afghan state.

The third phase, a turn to classic counterinsurgency doctrine, began in 2008 and accelerated with U.S. Pres. Barack Obama ’s 2009 decision to temporarily increase the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. The larger force was used to implement a strategy of protecting the population from Taliban attacks and supporting efforts to reintegrate insurgents into Afghan society. The strategy came coupled with a timetable for the withdrawal of the foreign forces from Afghanistan; beginning in 2011, security responsibilities would be gradually handed over to the Afghan military and police. The new approach largely failed to achieve its aims. Insurgent attacks and civilian casualties remained stubbornly high, while many of the Afghan military and police units taking over security duties appeared to be ill-prepared to hold off the Taliban. By the time the U.S. and NATO combat mission formally ended in December 2014, the 13-year Afghanistan War had become the longest war ever fought by the United States. U.S. Army soldiers on security duty in Paktīkā province, Afghanistan, 2010. Sgt. Derec Pierson/U.S. Department of Defense Prelude to the September 11 attacks The joint U.S.

and British invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 was preceded by over two decades of war in Afghanistan. On Dec. 24, 1979, Soviet tanks rumbled across the Amu Darya River and into Afghanistan, ostensibly to restore stability following a coup that brought to power a pair of Marxist-Leninist political groups—the People’s (Khalq) Party and the Banner (Parcham) Party. But the Soviet presence touched off a nationwide rebellion by Islamist fighters, who won extensive covert backing from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia , and the United States and who were joined in their fight by foreign volunteers. The guerrilla war against the Soviet forces led to their departure a decade later (see Afghan War ). In the void, civil war reigned, with the Islamist fighters—known as the mujahideen —battling first to oust the Soviet-backed government and then turning their guns on each other.

A convoy of Soviet armoured vehicles crossing a bridge at the Soviet-Afghan border, May 21, 1988, … Vitaly Armand—AFP/Getty Images War of 1812 In 1996 the Taliban seized Kabul and instituted a severe interpretation of Islamic law that, for example, forbade female education and prescribed the severing of hands, or even execution, as punishment for petty crimes. That same year, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was welcomed to Afghanistan (having been expelled from Sudan) and established his organization’s headquarters there. With al-Qaeda’s help, the Taliban won control of over 90 percent of Afghan territory by the summer of 2001. On September 9 of that year, al-Qaeda hit men carried out the assassination of famed mujahideen leader Ahmad Shah Massoud , who at the time was leading the Northern Alliance (a loose coalition of mujahideen militias that maintained control of a small section of northern Afghanistan) as it battled the Taliban and who had unsuccessfully sought greater U.S. backing for his efforts. Osama bin Laden sitting on the floor with an AKS-74U rifle, 2001.

AUSAF/AFP/Getty Images The September 11 attacks and the U.S.- British invasion The hijacking and crashing of four U.S. jetliners on Sept. 11, 2001, brought instant attention to Afghanistan. The plot had been hatched by al-Qaeda, and some of the 19 hijackers had trained in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the attacks, the administration of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush coalesced around a strategy of first ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan and dismantling al-Qaeda, though others contemplated actions in Iraq , including long-standing plans for toppling Pres. Ṣaddām Ḥussein . Bush demanded that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar “deliver to [the] United States authorities all the leaders of al-Qaeda who hide in your land,” and when Omar refused, U.S. officials began implementing a plan for war. Britannica Stories Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent The campaign in Afghanistan started covertly on September 26, with a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) team known as Jawbreaker arriving in the country and, working with anti-Taliban allies, initiating a strategy for overthrowing the regime. U.S.

officials hoped that by partnering with the Afghans they could avoid deploying a large force to Afghanistan. Pentagon officials were especially concerned that the United States not be drawn into a protracted occupation of Afghanistan, as had occurred with the Soviets more than two decades prior. The United States relied primarily on the Northern Alliance , which had just lost Massoud but had regrouped under other commanders, including Tajik leader Mohammed Fahim and Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek . The Americans also teamed with anti-Taliban Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan, including a little-known tribal leader named Hamid Karzai . USA Facts The CIA team was soon joined by U.S. and British special forces contingents , and together they provided arms, equipment, and advice to the Afghans. They also helped coordinate targeting for the air campaign, which began on Oct. 7, 2001, with U.S. and British war planes pounding Taliban targets, thus marking the public start of Operation Enduring Freedom. In late October, Northern Alliance forces began to overtake a series of towns formerly held by the Taliban. The forces worked with U.S. assistance, but they defied U.S.

wishes when, on November 13, they marched into Kabul as the Taliban retreated without a fight. Kandahar , the largest city in southern Afghanistan and the Taliban’s spiritual home, fell on December 6, marking the end of Taliban power. It had been besieged by a force led by Karzai that moved in from the north and one commanded by Gul Agha Sherzai that advanced from the south; both operated with heavy assistance from the United States . As the Taliban leadership retreated into Afghanistan’s rural areas and across the border to Pakistan , anti-Taliban figures convened at a United Nations (UN)-sponsored conference in Bonn, Ger. With behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the United States, Karzai was selected to lead the country on an interim basis. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest An intensive manhunt for Omar, bin Laden , and al-Qaeda deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was undertaken. Prior to the killing of bin Laden by U.S. forces in 2011 (see below), the Americans were believed to have come closest to bin Laden in the December 2001 battle of Tora Bora (bin Laden’s mountain stronghold).

But bin Laden was thought to have managed to have slipped into Pakistan with the help of Afghan and Pakistani forces that were supposedly helping the Americans. Critics later questioned why the U.S. military had allowed Afghan forces to lead the assault on the cave complex at Tora Bora rather than doing it themselves. (Indeed, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry made this criticism repeatedly during the 2004 general election campaign.) Al-Qaeda subsequently reestablished its base of operations in the tribal areas that form Pakistan’s northwest border with Afghanistan. Omar and his top Taliban lieutenants settled in and around the Pakistani city of Quetta , in the remote southwestern province of Balochistān . One of the final major battles of the first phase of the war came in March 2002 with Operation Anaconda in the eastern province of Paktia, which involved U.S. and Afghan forces fighting some 800 al-Qaeda and Taliban militants. The operation also marked the entrance of other countries’ troops into the war: special operations forces from Australia , Canada, Denmark , France, Germany , and Norway participated.

Iraq takes centre stage With the ouster of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the international focus shifted to reconstruction and nation-building efforts in Afghanistan. In April 2002 Bush announced a “Marshall Plan” for Afghanistan in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute , promising substantial financial assistance. But from the start, development efforts in Afghanistan were inadequately funded, as attention had turned among U.S. officials to the looming confrontation in Iraq. Between 2001 and 2009, just over $38 billion in humanitarian and reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan was appropriated by the U.S. Congress. More than half the money went to training and equipping Afghan security forces, and the remainder represented a fraction of the amount that experts said would be required to develop a country that had consistently ranked near the bottom of global human development indices. The aid program was also bedeviled by waste and by confusion over whether civilian or military authorities had responsibility for leading education, health, agriculture, and other development projects. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Despite military commitments from dozens of U.S.

allies, the United States initially argued against allowing the other foreign forces—operating as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)—to deploy beyond the Kabul area. That choice was directed by the Pentagon, which insisted on a “light footprint” out of concern that Afghanistan would become a drag on U.S. resources as attention shifted to Iraq (see Iraq War ). When ISAF did begin to venture beyond Kabul, its efforts were hampered by the “caveats” of its component countries—restrictions that kept all but a handful of the militaries from actively engaging in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The force, overseen by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the organization’s first mission outside Europe, was also hamstrung by a lack of troops as international commitments to Afghanistan flagged. The United States consistently represented the largest foreign force in Afghanistan, and it bore the heaviest losses. By spring 2010 more than 1,000 U.S. troops had been killed in Afghanistan, while the British troops suffered some 300 deaths and the Canadians some 150. Both Britain and Canada stationed their troops in Afghanistan’s south, where fighting had been most intense.

More than 20 other countries also lost troops during the war, though many—such as Germany and Italy—chose to focus their forces in the north and the west, where the insurgency was less potent. As the fighting dragged on and casualties escalated, the war lost popularity in many Western countries, creating domestic political pressure to keep troops out of harm’s way or to pull them out altogether. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressing Canadian soldiers at their base in Kandahar, … AP Eyjafjallajökull volcano Initially the war appeared to have been won with relative ease. On May 1, 2003, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced an end to “major combat” in Afghanistan. On the same day, aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, President Bush announced that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” At that time, there were 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The first democratic Afghan elections since the fall of the Taliban were held on Oct. 9, 2004, with approximately 80 percent of registered voters turning out to give Karzai a full five-year term as president.

Parliamentary elections were staged a year later, with dozens of women claiming seats set aside for them to ensure gender diversity . The 2004 constitution provided Afghanistan with a powerful central government and weak regional and local authorities—a structure that was in opposition to the country’s long-standing traditions. Despite vast powers under the constitution, Karzai was widely regarded as a weak leader who grew increasingly isolated as the war progressed. He survived several assassination attempts—including a September 2004 rocket attack that nearly struck a helicopter he was riding in—and security concerns kept him largely confined to the presidential palace in Kabul. Karzai’s government was beset by corruption, and efforts to build a national army and a police force were troubled from the start by inadequate international support and ethnic differences between Afghans. Taliban resurgence Beginning in 2005, violence climbed as the Taliban reasserted its presence with new tactics modeled on those being used by insurgents in Iraq. Whereas early in the war the Taliban had focused on battling U.S.

and NATO forces in open combat—a strategy that largely failed to inflict significant damage—their adoption of the use of suicide bombings and buried bombs, known as IEDs ( improvised explosive device s), began to cause heavy casualties. Between January 2005 and August 2006, Afghanistan endured 64 suicide attacks—a tactic that had been virtually unknown in the country’s history before then. At first the attacks caused relatively few casualties, but as training and the availability of high-powered explosives increased, the death toll began to climb: in one particularly vicious attack in November 2007, at least 70 people—many of them children—were killed as a parliamentary delegation visited the northern town of Baghlan . Less than a year later, a bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul killed more than 50; the Afghan government accused elements of Pakistan’s intelligence service of complicity in the attack, a charge Pakistan denied. An Afghan policeman consoling a relative of the provincial governor who was killed along with three … Rafiq Maqbool/AP The Taliban’s resurgence corresponded with a rise in anti-American and anti-Western sentiment among Afghans.

Those feelings were nurtured by the sluggish pace of reconstruction, allegations of prisoner abuse at U.S. detention facilities, widespread corruption in the Afghan government, and civilian casualties caused by U.S. and NATO bombings. In May 2006 a U.S. military vehicle crashed and killed several Afghans, an event that sparked violent anti-American riots in Kabul—the worst since the war began. Later that year NATO took command of the war across the country; American officials said that the United States would play a lesser role and that the face of the war would become increasingly international. This shift reflected the greater need for U.S. troops and resources in Iraq, where sectarian warfare was reaching alarming levels. By contrast, the war in Afghanistan was still regarded in Washington as a relative success. For commanders on the ground in Afghanistan, however, it was apparent that the Taliban intended to escalate its campaign. The Taliban was earning ample money through donations from wealthy individuals and groups in the Persian Gulf and from the booming opium trade. While poppy cultivation had been dramatically curbed during the Taliban’s final year in power, the group pushed to revive cultivation as a means of funding its insurgency.

Western-backed campaigns to eliminate poppy cultivation or to encourage farmers to grow other crops had little discernible impact; Afghanistan soon became the supplier of over 90 percent of the world’s opium. Afghan policemen destroying opium poppies during an eradication sweep in Orūzgān … AP The United States, meanwhile, had had only limited success in killing or capturing Taliban commanders. In early 2007, Mullah Obaidullah Akhund—the Taliban’s number three leader—was captured in Pakistan, and months later Mullah Dadullah—the Taliban’s top military commander—was killed in fighting with U.S. forces. But those were the exceptions. Top insurgent leaders remained at large, many of them in the tribal regions of Pakistan that adjoin Afghanistan. This reality prompted the United States to begin targeting insurgent leaders who lived in Pakistan with missiles fired from remotely piloted drones (see unmanned aerial vehicle ). The CIA program of targeted killings was publicly denied by U.S. officials but was widely acknowledged in private. Pakistani officials in turn denounced the strikes in public but privately approved of them as long as civilian casualties were limited.

The United States repeatedly threatened to expand its drone strikes beyond Pakistan’s tribal areas and into regions such as Balochistān if Pakistan did not demonstrate greater cooperation in battling the Taliban, a group it had long fostered. The Obama surge U.S. Pres. Barack Obama went to the White House promising to focus attention and resources on the faltering war effort in Afghanistan. On Feb. 17, 2009, he approved sending an additional 17,000 U.S. troops, on top of the 36,000 U.S. troops and 32,000 NATO service members already there. Three months later Obama took the rare step of removing a commanding general from a theatre of war, replacing Gen. David McKiernan with Gen. Stanley McChrystal . While McKiernan was shifting U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, Obama and other top officials had concluded that a more radical change was needed. McChrystal was brought in to implement a new strategy modeled after the surge strategy in Iraq—one in which U.S. forces would focus on protecting the population from insurgents rather than simply trying to kill large numbers of militants.

The strategy also involved trying to persuade enemy fighters to defect and ultimately encouraging reconciliation between the Karzai government and Taliban leaders. U.S. Pres. Barack Obama meeting at the White House with Pres. Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Pres. … Gerald Herbert/AP An Afghan man riding a bicycle on a dirt road during a security patrol by U.S. Marines and Afghan … Staff Sgt. William Greeson, U.S. Marine Corps/U.S. Department of Defense Soon after assuming command, McChrystal concluded that he did not have enough troops to execute the new strategy, and in September 2009 he laid out his concerns in a confidential report, which was subsequently leaked to the press. McChrystal predicted that the war would be lost within a year if there was not a significant troop surge. After an intensive Afghan policy review—the second one by the Obama administration in less than a year—the president delivered a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on December 1 in which he announced a major escalation in the war effort, with 30,000 additional troops being deployed to Afghanistan by the summer of 2010. The new strategy led to an increase in U.S.

combat deaths; notably, during the first three months of 2010, U.S. deaths were approximately twice what they had been over the same period in 2009. A U.S. soldier calling for an air strike on the hills surrounding Barge Matal in eastern … Sgt. Matthew C. Moeller, U.S. Army/U.S. Department of Defense The surge in U.S. forces was accompanied by a dramatic escalation of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan—one of which killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. But the CIA also paid a price in late December 2009 when an al-Qaeda double agent detonated a suicide bomb at a Bagram air base in the eastern province of Khost, killing seven from the agency. In early 2010 the surge began with an assault on the insurgent-held town of Marja, in the southern province of Helmand. U.S. Marines achieved a relatively quick victory, even as McChrystal planned a more ambitious offensive in Kandahar . Obama visited Afghanistan for the first time as president on March 28, delivering a stern message to Karzai that he needed to clean up corruption in his government.

Karzai had won a new five-year term in an August 2009 election that was tainted by widespread allegations of fraud. Karzai vowed in his inaugural address to stamp out corruption in his government, but there were few signs in the short term that he had done so. Meanwhile, Karzai announced that he would attempt to reconcile with the Taliban; he repeatedly invited Mullah Omar to meet with him, but the Taliban leader steadfastly refused. Under intense pressure from the United States, Karzai lashed out in April 2010 and even threatened to join the Taliban if the international community did not stop meddling in Afghan affairs. Troubled by the comments, the White House threatened to revoke Karzai’s invitation to meet with Obama in Washington, D.C. , but the visit occurred as scheduled, with Karzai and Obama at least outwardly making efforts to mend their relationship. Pakistan offered to mediate Afghan peace talks, but Pakistan’s ultimate attitude toward the Taliban remained a matter of great controversy. In February 2010, Pakistani security forces arrested the Afghan Taliban’s second-in-command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a move interpreted by many U.S.

officials as a reflection of Pakistan’s desire to work with the U.S. and Afghan governments to stem the group’s influence. But others, including Kai Eide, the former top UN official in Kabul, said Baradar had been a leading Taliban proponent of reconciliation and that the arrest was intended to scuttle efforts to end the war through a political, rather than military, solution. The military command structure in Afghanistan abruptly changed again in June 2010, when Obama replaced McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus after McChrystal and some of his aides made disparaging remarks to a Rolling Stone magazine reporter about Obama and other top administration officials, including Vice Pres. Joe Biden , National Security Advisor James L. Jones , and special representative to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke . The comments underscored festering tensions between U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan and some members of the Obama administration’s civilian leadership. In explaining the change of command, Obama said, “I welcome debate among my team, but I won’t tolerate division.” Despite the switch, Obama vowed that U.S. strategy in Afghanistan would not change. Petraeus, considered the leading architect of counterinsurgency doctrine in the U.S.

military, was expected to continue McChrystal’s emphasis on protecting the Afghan population from insurgents, building Afghan government institutions, and seeking to limit civilian casualties. Griff Witte The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica Shortly after McChrystal’s dismissal, a cache of classified documents relating to the Afghanistan War was published online by the whistle-blowing journalistic organization WikiLeaks and prereleased to several newspapers, including The New York Times , Der Spiegel , and The Guardian . The information was mainly in the form of raw intelligence gathered between 2004 and 2009, and WikiLeaks cumulatively termed it the “Afghan War Diary.” It detailed previously unreported civilian deaths, indicated that a U.S. special forces unit was tasked with capturing or killing the persons on a list of insurgent leaders, revealed that the Taliban had employed heat-seeking missiles against aircraft, and suggested that the Pakistani intelligence service had been working with Taliban forces in spite of substantial U.S. aid to Pakistan for its assistance in combating militants. The U.S. government criticized the disclosure as a security breach but stated that the substance of the leak corresponded with other known intelligence and did not contain new information.

Developments with some of the primary objectives of the war—apprehending key al-Qaeda leaders and dealing with the Taliban—were front and centre in 2011. Nearly 10 years after eluding capture at Tora Bora in Afghanistan, bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces on May 2, 2011, after U.S. intelligence located him living in a secure compound in Abbottabad , Pak. The operation, a raid carried out by a small team that reached the compound by helicopter , led to a firefight in which bin Laden died. The next month U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirmed for the first time that the U.S. government was holding reconciliation talks with the Taliban, although he stressed that efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict were still in the preliminary stages. Then, on June 22, Obama announced an accelerated timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, saying that the United States had largely achieved its goals by disrupting al-Qaeda’s operations and killing many of its leaders. The plan called for the number of U.S.

troops in Afghanistan to be reduced by as many as 30,000 within a year, in preparation for a complete withdrawal of combat forces by the end of 2014. Hours after Obama’s announcement, French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France would also begin to withdraw its 4,000 soldiers from Afghanistan. In September, efforts to end the long-running conflict suffered a setback when Burhanuddin Rabbani , a former Afghan president and a key figure in reconciliation negotiations, was assassinated by a suicide bomber. A series of incidents in early 2012 heightened tensions between the U.S. and the Afghan government and provoked public outrage. In mid-January, a video showing U.S. Marines urinating on dead Afghans circulated in the media, drawing apologies from U.S. officials. Weeks later, Afghans rioted and held protests over reports that U.S. soldiers had disposed of copies of the Qurʾān at a military base by burning them. Then, on March 11, a U.S.

soldier allegedly left an American base near Panjwai and broke into several homes, shooting dead 17 Afghans, mostly women and children. The incident provoked widespread demonstrations and a sharp condemnation from Karzai. Days later, the Taliban suspended participation in talks with the United States and the Afghan government. Later that year NATO ’s efforts to train and equip the Afghan army and police were hampered by an increase in attacks in which Afghan soldiers and police turned their weapons on NATO soldiers. These attacks forced NATO troops to institute more rigorous screening procedures and to suspend the training of certain units. Meanwhile, in early 2012, U.S. and Afghan negotiators reached agreements regarding two issues that had been sources of friction between the Obama and Karzai administrations. The first agreement, signed in March, set a six-month timetable for the transfer of Afghan detainees held by the U.S. military to Afghan custody. The second agreement, signed in April, established that Afghan forces would oversee and lead night raids to apprehend or kill Taliban leaders. These raids, previously led by U.S. special forces, had since 2009 become a major component of the campaign against the Taliban.

Afghan leaders, however, had long objected that the raids violated Afghan sovereignty and that surprise invasions of private homes ultimately alienated public opinion and increased support for the insurgency. The agreements in March and April concerning detainees and night raids cleared the way for the United States and Afghanistan to reach a further agreement in May outlining a framework for economic and security cooperation between the two countries following the withdrawal of NATO combat troops in 2014. The agreement expressed the United States’ commitment to continuing military support for the Afghan government after 2014, although it left unanswered the question of whether or not some U.S. and NATO forces would remain in Afghanistan as trainers and advisers after 2014. That was to be determined by a separate pact, the Bilateral Security Agreement . Even though the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan remained deeply unpopular, many Afghans feared that a sudden withdrawal would allow the country to slip into civil war or chaos . The issue of leaving foreign troops in the country after the end of NATO combat operations remained unresolved until the last half of 2014.

Karzai—by then in the last months of his presidency—had refused to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement before leaving office, and the election of his successor was delayed by a lengthy recount. In late September 2014 Ashraf Ghani was finally inaugurated as president and immediately signed the Bilateral Security Agreement, which authorized an international force of approximately 13,000 to remain in the country. The U.S. and NATO formally ended their combat mission in Afghanistan on December 28, 2014. Afghanistan War 2001 - Mercy Relief Afghanistan War 2001 Date: October 2001 – October 2003 The war against Afghanistan from 2001-2014 was part of the wider global war on terrorism known as Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) that followed the 9/11 attacks in the US. Mercy Relief stepped in to provide aid immediately after the first wave of fighting began. The war resulted in widespread destruction and the total number of direct and indirect casualties is estimated to be as many as 23,600.

Partner(s): Local Afghan authorities, Singapore International Foundation (SIF), Singhealth, Muslim Aid Australia (MAA) How we helped: Raised S$128,000 through a national fundraising campaign in Singapore Conducted a joint assessment mission with SIF and SingHealth ahead of the Singapore-Afghan Medical Mission Deployed five medical relief missions comprising 18 doctors, nurses and logistics personnel Sent 28,800 cans of meat to Spin Boldak, Zandur and Kandahar Provided blankets to a medical centre in Spin Boldak September 2002 – September 2003 Co-sponsored two general practitioners for a medical centre and hospital in Spin Boldak and Kandahar with MAA Ran two elementary schools for child refugees in Spin Boldak Operation Enduring Freedom Timeline | War in The Middle East Operation Enduring Freedom Timeline History of War - War in The Middle East Related Articles The Gulf War Many will know Operation Enduring Freedom as the operational name given to the war in Afghanistan by the American government, but Operation Enduring Freedom is further reaching than this.

Operation Enduring Freedom is the name given to the war in Afghanistan along with another number of conflicts that all sit in the American category of conflicts born out of the war on terror. Initially the operation had a different name which was "Operation Infinite Justice" but this was changed as it had religious undertones which could have offended the Muslim population of Afghanistan and caused a negative impact from the start of the conflict. The Conflicts of Operation Enduring Freedom In total there are seven conflicts that sit under this operational name. The one everyone knows is the war in Afghanistan, but the others are the conflicts in the Philippines, Horn of Africa, Pankisi Gorge, Trans Sahara, Caribbean and Central America and Kyrgyzstan. Of all these conflicts only those in Kyrgyzstan and Pankisi Gorge have finished, both of which finished in 2004. Operation Enduring Freedom Timeline On 11th September 2001 the world stood still as two planes crashed into the world trade center in New York, along with a further plane hitting the Pentagon. Because of the devastating impact on the World Trade Centres’ two towers both of them collapsed and nearly three thousand people perished.

By 20th September 2011 it was announced that Osama Bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda was responsible for the attack. It was also on the 20th September that the American president at the time, George W. Bush, announced that America and her allies were going to terrorist training camps and building infrastructures as well as capture Al-Qaeda senior leaders. On 7th October 2001 Operation Enduring Freedom started with the conflict in Afghanistan. The initial attacks came in the form of air strikes and missiles launched from both US and UK Navy ships. By January of the next year the US sent 1,200 soldiers into the Philippines to support the Philippine army in eradicating terrorists, a conflict that is still ongoing today. By October 2002 the US set a Naval force along with other coalition countries to Djibouti. This force is called the Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) and is a massive group of heavily armed ships used for humanitarian missions and also for checked for illegal cargo and training local troops. In February 2002 a force of 200 American Special Forces were sent into Georgia.

This force was not for conflict itself but to train Georgian troops so they can protect the Pankisi Gorge from Chechen rebels who used the area as a place of transit. On the 6th February 2007 the Americans and supporting nations from Africa started the military operation to stop drugs and arms trafficking along with counterterrorism efforts in the Sahara region of Africa. The Caribbean and Central America part of Operation Enduring Freedom started in 2008, this involved a group of Special Forces being sent into Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana and Suriname to detect terrorist cells. In December 2001 the Americans opened their military installation called Transit Center at Manas in Kyrgyzstan. This base is an important centre for the military operations America carries out in Afghanistan. The base has been pivotal to US operations in Asia and beyond and as such America has agreed to pay higher rent to continue the use of the base. Related Articles How The War In Afghanistan Began - Business Insider print U.S. President George W. Bush sits after announcing that the U.S.

and Britain had started bombing Afghanistan, in the Treaty Room of the White House in Washington, October 7, 2001 Reuters Photographer/REUTERS On October 7, 2001, 13 years ago today, the US launched its opening attacks against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The still-ongoing Operation Enduring Freedom, which is now the longest continuous war in American history , had begun. Then-president President George W. Bush announced the beginning of the US's war in Afghanistan at 1 pm eastern time that day, a Sunday. He stat ed that "on my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaida terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan." A day before the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair assured his public that any military involvement in Afghanistan would be tightly focused. The prime minister ruled out attacks against other nations involved in the planning of terrorism. The first day of the war saw targeted airstrikes carried out by US and British forces against key pieces of Taliban infrastructure. Some of the targets bombed included training camps, defensible positions, and communications equipment. France, Germany, Australia and Canada provided further logistical support for the conflict's first bombing runs.

Tomahawk cruise missile is launched from the USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) in a strike against al Qaeda training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, October 7, 2001. Reuters Photographer/REUTERS Newsweek reported on October 7, 2001 that three US Aegic cruisers and one destroyer in the Arabian Sea launched over 50 missiles against Taliban positions in Afghanistan. These attacks were complemented by the launch of Tomahawk cruise missiles from British and American submarines. Simultaneously, F/A-18s, B-1s, B-2s, and B-52s conducted bombing runs over Taliban positions. As airstrikes began against Taliban positions, Bush said that the US was also undertaking humanitarian aid drops in an attempt to reassure the local population of America's good intentions. "As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan," Bush said in his address. US ground forces for what would turn into an over decade-long fight against the Taliban were not fully in place.

The New York Times published on October 6, 2001 that only a few dozen special forces operatives were deployed throughout the region in preparation for the coming assault on the Taliban's centers of power. In addition to these limited number of special forces, one thousand US soldiers specially trained for mountain warfare were in place in Uzbekistan at the start of operations. The early rounds of US on-the-ground fighting on October 7th, 2001 involved US personnel fighting alongside soldiers from the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban group in Northern Afghanistan pushing south against the extremist regime's front lines. A Northern Alliance soldier shoots a machine gun on the front line near the town of Alti Hoja in the north of Afghanistan, October 7, 2001. Afghan opposition forces fighting the ruling Taliban said on Sunday they had seized 11 villages in the central province of Ghor and were advancing on the provincial capital Cheghcharan. Reuters Photographer/REUTERS With the announcement of the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, Bush signaled that it would be a long, drawn-out conflict that would require "patience in all the sacrifices that may come." The operation continues thirteen years later.

When Kabul fell to coalition forces on November 13th, 2001, few could have expected that Operation Enduring Freedom — which had fulfilled one of its prime objectives in a matter of weeks — would become America's longest war. The majority of US troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by December 31, 2014. But an additional 10,000 US soldiers will remain in Afghanistan as part of a recently signed bilateral security agreement. This presence of Americans will provide a much needed psychological boost to the Afghans, as the Taliban have ratcheted up attacks recently. Thirteen years later, the war seems far from definitively won.

Question: Known as Operation Enduring Freedom, what war began on Oct 7th, 2001?
Answer: Afghanistan war